_______________________________________________________________________________________
Cornwall Museum Group Meeting
9th June – Geevor Mine
________________________________________________________________________________________
MINUTES
Attended:
Steph Meads – Museum and Heritage Consultant & Interim
Chair of the Cornwall Museums Group
Jo Mattingly – Museum and Heritage Consultant
Henrietta Boex – Falmouth Art Gallery
Ellie Collier – HLF Catalyst Fundraising Programme
Bryony Robins – Cornwall Museums Development Officer
Charlotte Dando – Telegraph Museum Porthcurno
Vicky Dawson – Accreditation Technical Advisor
Libby Buckley – Freelance
Iain Rowe – Kresen Kernow
Eleanor Moore – Sustainable Volunteering Officer
Helena Jaeschke – South West Conservation Officer
Tamsin Daniel – Cornwall Council
Richard Doughty – National Maritime Museum
Jo Moore – Wheal Martyn
Brian Stevens – St Ives Museum
Margaret Stevens – St Ives Museum
Charlotte Todd – Telegraph Museum Porthcurno
Helen Bishop Stephens – Harveys Foundry Trust
Christine Walton – Lostwithiel Museum
Tremar Menendez – Lostwithiel Museum
Esthermary Todd – Lostwithiel Museum
Amanda Davidge – Lostwithiel Museum
Geoff Richards – Wadebridge District Museum
Helen Rawe – Wadebridge District Museum
Angela Richards – Wadebridge District Museum
Louise Connell – Penlee House
Jan Horrell – Freelance
Keith Searle – Bodmin and Wenford Railway
Jenny Wittamore – National Maritime Museum
Sarah Lloyd-Durrant – Royal Cornwall Museum
Don Garman – Constantine Museum
Anne MacTavish – Tate St Ives
Katherine Ashton – Helston Museum
Rosie Klislay – Helston Museum
Jo Smith – HLF Catalyst Fundraising Programme
(Minutes – Jsmith@wheal-martyn.com )
Apologies:
Rachel Hunt – Cotehele (National Trust)
Jo Warburton – East Pool Mine
Anthony Power – Levant Mine
Gemma Martin – Wheal Martyn
Hayley Buscombe – Borlase Smart John Wells Trust
Liz Thompson – St Agnes Museum
Gillian Grant – Penryn Town Museum
Lucy Frears – Hay Heritage Centre
Linda Higgins – Perranzabuloe Museum
Item
1
Carol Richardson Bunbury – Lawrence House
Zoe Burkett – Education and outreach officer – Penlee House
Rachel Hunt – Cotehele
Giles Clotworthy – Cornwall’s Regimental Museum
Charles Edward-Collins – Cornwall’s Regimental Museum
Mervyn Mitchell – Newquay Old Cornwall Society
Chris Shinner – Newquay Old Cornwall Society
Kirsten Gordon – Truro Cathedral
Daphne Hicks – Padstow Museum
Discussion
Previous Minutes – Introduction from Steph Meads, Interim Chair of the Cornwall Museums
Group
Steph welcomed the group and thanked the speakers for attending.
Action
Mike Simpson – Geevor Mine – also welcomed the group and explained a short history of the
development of Geevor mine as a heritage site. Mike later, very kindly, gave some of the group a
tour of the mine and explained how the site was developed and their plans for future.
museum@geevor.com
Thanks very much Mike for hosting the meeting!
Minutes of the Previous Meeting
Steph asked the group if they were happy with the minutes of the last meeting and all agreed
that they were correct.
2
CMG briefing for Chair and Vice Chair of the Cornwall Museums Group
Libby Buckley asked for people to nominate themselves for the role of Chair of the CMG. She
explained her history with the group and her past experience of being Chair. She stated that the
aim of CMG is that it would be a united voice for all Museums and Heritage organisations in
Cornwall.
The Chair would need to have basic IT skills and the ability to talk to people. Part of the role
would be coming up with an agenda for CMG Meetings, inviting guest speakers and engaging
with other organisations. Nominations are invited from anyone involved in the sector whether
they are in paid work, volunteering, a Trustee or in any other kind of role. There will continue to
be Quarterly meetings of the CMG group and admin support will be provided to arrange these,
circulate papers and take minutes, through the CMP. Beyond these meetings it will be up to the
Chair to make what they want out of the role. We will also be seeking a Vice Chair who would be
willing to step up should the Chair not be available.
If you wish to nominate yourself for Chair please contact: JSmith@wheal-martyn.com
3
SW Museums Fed Update
Charlotte Dando (now Todd – recently married) did an update on what is happening with the SW
Fed. For full details of Charlotte’s presentation please read the attached Pdf document SW Fed
CMG Update.
SW Fed Annual Conference will be taking place in Plymouth Guild Hall on Wednesday 8th July.
The theme is around Volunteering in Museums Today – more than just tea and cakes.
For further details please read the presentation, which also provides instructions on how to
book. The SW Fed AGM will also be held in the afternoon – further details on the presentation.
Charlotte asked if the CMG where happy for her to continue as the SW Fed representative and all
were agreed. If anyone wishes to challenge this decision please contact Jo Smith JSmith@whealmartyn.com and the information will be fed through to the CMG group.
New appointments to the SW Fed:
 Carmen Talbot – Communications Administer.
–She will be the person to contact regarding any items to post on the website.
 Diana Walters – Executive Officer.
–Helping the Board to implement the recommendations for achieving sustainability set out in
the SW Fed Business Plan.
 Matt Ashdown – Membership Officer.
–Tasked to modernise the admin of the membership process, improve and clarify the
membership offer and increase membership numbers.
SW Fed Grant from resilience will be supporting the following new post:
Training researcher – currently recruiting for a consultant - salary around £15k. Deadline
extended to 15th June. Details on the presentation.
SW Museum Skills Programme
 Booking for the first tranche of the 2015/16 programme opened in April.

There are now just 5 places remaining on the Collections Care training which will be held in
Saltash on the 15th June.

This year, all workshops remain free for anyone working or volunteering in a museum within
the accreditation scheme or who is a member of the SW Fed. For anyone else, the cost of
attending is £50.
Organising a training event?
 The SW Fed offers a service which enables you to access the organisation, scheduling, brand,
marketing and evaluation of the SW Museum Skills programme.
 The fee for this is £500, not including speaker costs.
 Alternatively, we are happy to advertise the event on the SW Fed website (for non-members
there is a charge of £70 per event for this service).
Charlotte encouraged people to renew their membership and sign up for e- bulletin to keep up to
date with the news.
4.
Major Partner Museums (MPM)
Louise Connell – Director of Penlee House Gallery and Museum - gave an update of what is
happening with the MPM. She explained that the partnership is a consortium of six museums in
Cornwall:
 Penlee House – lead partner
 Falmouth Art Gallery
 National Maritime Museum
 Wheal Martyn China Clay Museum
 Royal Cornwall Museum
 Leach Pottery
Although the consortium will be working on developing the project, the aims and remit of MPM
funding are for the benefit all museums in Cornwall. Louise explained that the reason the
consortium was set up was to enable them bid for this large pot of funding because individually
they were not of a sufficient size to fit the criteria of the MPM programme. The partners are just
two months into the project and are now looking how to implement a whole raft of activities
which will include working with the whole museum sector in Cornwall. Louise explained that one
of the things which impressed the Arts Council was that:
“The overall shape and scope of the proposal is clearly inclusive of the wider museums sector in
Cornwall and describes the partnerships intention to offer activity which will make an impact on
skills and quality of museums across the region”
So the funding will not just about the consortium but about all museums working together. There
will be lots of exciting opportunities and potential partnerships over the next three years. The
first year will be spent on developing and consolidating the projects. The main activity will take
place between; 2016 – 2018. This will revolve around a number of areas:
Collections co-ordinator - Jo Moore, Curator, Wheal Martyn. Jo will be able to offer advice and
guidance on how to manage and care for your collections on a very limited budget. There will be
free training events and advice on emergency planning and storage and a whole raft of activities
which focus on the work Wheal Martyn is doing.
A Community Engagement and Learning Officer is in the process of being appointed. This
person is extremely experienced and will be offering help and advice to all museums in
developing their learning offer. So if you want to do more with families and your local
community, this person will be on hand to support you and help you to develop projects.
The MPM will also be working with Arts for Health. So there will be many opportunities to
engage with your community.
The six museums will be doing pilot projects with community organisations and groups. Penlee
will be working with Miracle Theatre and this will involve offering training to their volunteers. A
lot of the work, which will be done through MPM, will be about building the volunteer base,
recruiting new volunteers and helping to train existing volunteers.
The programme will also be co-ordinating subject specialist networks in art and industrial
heritage, sharing knowledge and experience. In addition the programme will be developing a
digital strategy, currently being led by Telegraph Museum Porthcurno.
One of the most exciting aspects of the programme will be about investing in gallery
infrastructure. This will include; environmental monitoring, new cabinets and things that will
allow organisations to exhibit more items from store or take loans. There will also be funding to
develop and improve exhibitions and displays.
The aim will be to show the Arts Council the difference their money will make not just to the six
museums but to the wider Cornwall museums network.
Louise will give a further update on this in September.
5.
Cornwall MDO Update
Bryony Robins, MDO for Cornwall, now has an official email:
bryony@cornwallmuseumspartnership.org.uk .
She announced that the Cornwall Museums Partnership website up and running.
http://www.cornwallmuseumspartnership.org.uk/
A New Chair has been appointed for the Cornwall Museums Partnership, Sir Ferrers Vyvan and
Emmie Kell has been appointed CEO. Emmie asked that if the museums had any ideas for projects
and please put these forward for the September meeting.
Annual museums survey
An email has gone out requesting that museums fill in the survey. The survey monkey will be
circulated again as soon as possible to make sure everyone has the chance to fill it in. Last year
Cornwall achieved a 100 percent response rate so it would be great if we could repeat this.
Jo Mattingly updated on the 100 faces 100 stories and stated that they had doubled the print run
so there were more copies available. She asked that museums distribute them throughout their
communities, doctors’ surgeries, community groups etc. Although the leaflets cannot be sold
museums can ask for donations for leaflets. Jo thanked everyone who participated.
Training –
- Collections care is taking place in Saltash 15th June,
- Tips for applying for arts council resilience funding, which was due to take place on 24th
June at Wheal Martyn has now been postponed. The launch of the funding stream was
supposed to open in autumn is now scheduled to take place in January of next year.
6.
Kersen Kernow Archives and Cornish Studies
Ian Rowe introduced the Kersen Kernow project, which will be based at Redruth Brewery. He
explained that there had been a lot of work done over the last 18 months in the development
stage of the scheme.
The building will be a mixture of old and new and some features of the original site will be
retained (Ian showed a powerpoint with the architects drawings of how the site will look which is
attached with these notes – Pdf document Kresen Kernow Geevor Presentation).
There will be a meeting held on 17th June with the national HLF team to discuss the Round 2
application so it’s fingers crossed that it will be passed.
In round 1 of the bid it was the largest amount of money asked for any archive project in the UK.
The site was chosen for regenerative use and the reason the project bid was so high was due to
the poor state of the buildings. The bid is now around £16m, which will be funded partly by HLF
(£11.5m) and partly by Cornwall Council. ERDF money paid for the flood alleviation and
environmental surveys.
7.
South West Succession Planning
Vicky Dawson updated on the succession planning. The slides of the presentation are attached
with these minutes – Pdf document Succession Planning VD CMG.
How often do you discuss succession planning in your museum? Is it usually reactive when
something happens?
Why Plan – It’s a bit like making a will, giving a sense of security and for the continuing future of
your museum, making sure procedures continue. No-one is irreplaceable.
As an organisation you need to consider this if you are working towards accreditation and have
this in your business plan. Succession planning should be part of the management role. You
need to keep expert knowledge within your organisation and have a plan B if someone is ill.
Succession planning needs to be part of volunteer training as well as paid employees. It is
relevant for everyone.
Steps in the process:
Identify key/critical positions and functions
Critical positions are the people such as the treasurer and higher up through the organisation.
Key roles; store, documentation, specialised expertise etc.
Analyse your present position
What threats are there, is someone retiring, moving away etc. What skills do you currently
require and what skills will you need in the future. What strategies can you use to address skills
need?
Develop a succession plan
Develop ways to mitigate the risk and make sure leadership and key tasks are distributed. Share
you expertise i.e. modes. Run a familiarisation workshop with people. At monthly volunteer
meetings, get the volunteers state what they do and help them to share their knowledge with
other volunteers. Identify people in the museum who are particularly keen and look likely to
carry out certain roles. This should be part of volunteer recruitment, finding out what peoples
interests are in the beginning. Find out where they would like to start and progress to. Know as
much about your volunteers as you can. Make the volunteer workforce more flexible. Draw up
procedural manuals i.e. for front of house, who is responsible for cleaning etc. Simple check list
and how to do list. This should be part of the induction programme.
Vicky did a brief workshop with the room at this stage, the outcome of which was as follows:
List the key roles in your organisation needs to survive:
- Manager/Chair – bound by the rules of the charity commission
- Secretary – legal requirement
- Curator – legal requirement
- Treasurer – legal requirement
- Caretaker/site team – very specific knowledge and health and safety requirement
- Maintenance
You need to make sure you have a sufficient workforce to run the charity
Identify the skills and knowledge within your organisation:
- The ability to draw up rotas – volunteers etc.
- Do you need a first aid person to open up
- Person responsible to open up and close the site
- Skill for historical research
- Display skills with interpretation – someone able to tell the story
- Communication skills – when people come through the door they must be welcoming
- Website upkeep
- IT
- Local knowledge – fantastic resource
- Mining sites; volunteers who have worked at the mine – need to capture the skill
- Front desk capturing the knowledge – make notes in the day book have a system to
capture the knowledge – make lists and procedures to follow.
- Membership systems – need to be able to pass this on to the next person
- Information passed on at every level
- Collections knowledge
- Documentation knowledge – this can be a challenge to pass this on
- Knowledge about your organisation – such and such will know - what happens when they
are not there? Their knowledge needs to be put in writing somehow.
- You may not have the period of handover (someone might pass away suddenly).
- How do you minimise the risk of losing collection knowledge – need good documentation
and knowing where to find the documents – training people up.
- Encouraging other people to publish
- RAMM Exeter –have information on their website – access to the collections
- The Curator holds a lot of key information – how do you make sure that is not lost if
something happens to them
- How do you persuade people to let go – empower people
- Make sure you know why volunteers have joined your organisation – they may not want
to do what they have always done – they may want to try something new and different.
Minimising the risk of losing collections knowledge
- Good documentation
- Knowing where to find the information – making sure that this is accessible
- Make your collections available for others to study and encourage them to publish –
Exeter have a good example on their website of how to help people research their
collections
The slides also refer to where to find help and information around this subject.
8.
Volunteering
Elena Moore, Sustainable Volunteer Officer, SW Museum Development Partnership gave a talk
on how to recruit new volunteers – Pdf Document, Elena Moore, Cornwall Museums Group
Presentation attached with these minutes.
The most essential thing is to make your recruitment drive attractive and do good induction.
Take time out from running the museum to consider what roles may need to be filled. Make sure
skills are passed on with a fun training event.
Steps to take before your recruitment drive:
 Analyse what skills and roles you want within your organisation.
 Gather information from current volunteers – why do they turn up.
 Take the practical and administrative steps you need to take to prepare prior to volunteer
recruitment – tips on the slides
 Have you discussed what the volunteers can offer?
 How do you welcome and enthuse volunteers?
 Need to be able to organise the volunteer rota – is there training and support to do this –
your volunteer policy should state this and this should also be in your forward plan. An
example was a museum in North Devon – forward planning didn’t happen and it was down
to one administrator. This person had too much work – Chair of the board got them to write
down what they did. This came down to 7 strands of activity and board took on
responsibility to distribute the workload more fairly.
 Volunteer co-ordinator needs to be in place.
 Recruitment drive – gather information from your current team (refer to slides) what
attracted them to become a volunteer.
 When people leave find out why they wanted to go – is it lack of support – sometimes it’s
just change in the organisation.
 Welcome and looking after, make sure they know they are appreciated
 Can you change the length of the rota times to accommodate people?
 Social events and communication, key to making volunteering worthwhile.
 Need to formalise an application – may not always be someone you know.
 Need to make sure you have DBS checks. Keep updated on policies and have a child
protection policy in place. Make sure you have data protection.
 Can people tell what getting involved with your museums is all about?
 A tour and a chat is better than a formal interview.
 Make sure they know about Health and Safety policies and fire drills etc.
 Make sure they know who their point of contact is.
 Have a light touch grievance procedure and make sure this is transparent and people know
what this is.
Sharing recruitment experiences:
Lostwithiel museum shared their experience of a recent recruitment drive. They leafleted the
town and asked the question ‘do you want your museum to stay open’. This brought in several
new volunteers but also created an awareness of the museum within the community.
Further tips are as follows:
- Make it clear to people what amount of time you would like them to devote to
volunteering i.e. for 2hrs a day, three slots, what day and what time.
- Give a steward’s induction with step by step procedures of how your organisation works
and what your aims and objectives are.
- Hold a meeting once a year, maybe day at the beginning of the season to celebrate
volunteering and let them know what has been happening and what the aims are for the
coming year.
- Have a volunteer agreement which the need to read (don’t necessarily need to sign it).
- Make sure your ethos behind volunteering is not what they can do for you what you can
do for them.
- Consider having volunteer days, bite sized training sessions.
Ways to recruit new volunteers
- Do-it website – the new kid on the block. They will advertise your roles. If you contact
Volunteer Cornwall and they will do it for you or you can go straight to the site and do it
yourself.
- Consider the press – writing an article to advertise your organisation.
- Local radio will advertise for free – do it about a specific project – NMMC got 10
volunteers through this.
- West Briton and Cornish Guardian do a free advert for volunteers. Old Cornwall, do a
time limited project.
- Look at groups who have never thought to volunteer with you. Organise a drop in event.
Be flexible on time they need to commit, maybe once a month. Build short term project
teams. Give an opportunity to volunteer now and again as an initial introduction.
Elenor stated that there will be a full time person appointed to support the volunteer roles going
into the future run through the SW Museum Development Partnership.
9.
Help at Hand – Saltash Case Study on Volunteering
Bryony Robins gave a presentation on of a case study on how Saltash museum run their
volunteering programme, with which they have had great success. Attached are the slides of the
presentation – Pdf document Saltash.
The museum is entirely volunteer run. The museums has:
4 holding trustees
63 volunteers
14 people in volunteer management roles
49 stewards
Tips for running a successful programme are:
- Build a role around the person according to their abilities.
- Celebrate volunteers, do a volunteer awards day.
- Core being routed in the community. People trust you and want to be part of the
museum. They get involved in local events. Have a showcase at other local
organisations i.e. Brownies.
- Support from their council – good news stories. Two local councillors are part of the
holding trustees.
-
The key is providing more than volunteers ask for. Give them more than they are
expecting. Be proactive.
Looking sideways at problems and making them work.
Working with schools - costumes.
Steward roles – given training and annual induction. Done as a fun thing – health and
safety quiz.
Rota very flexible – don’t have to do every Monday etc. Rota arranged by a different
member of the management committee each month.
Communication, newsletter keeping people in touch.
Have a cup of tea with the management. Keeping them up to date with what is going on.
Celebrate birthdays.
Have an annual thanking event/party.
Keep a job back in hand – just in case volunteers drop in.
Target people in town who you would like to get involved.
Sharing out new exiting opportunities. Try out new roles, make it varied. Make sure that
they are happy with want they are doing.
Most of all Make It Fun!!!
10.
Rationalising your Collection
Helena Jaeschke, South West Conservation Officer, gave a talk on Rationalising your Collection.
She began her section by mentioning that she had negotiated a special deal on a USB data logger which
records temperature and relative humidity. It will give you spreadsheet with all the readings on
it. The software is free for the logger and you don’t need a cable. The price for the logger is £50.
Does the same job as tiny tags but half the price and includes software.
Central Purchasing Scheme – Helena will be sending around a short list soon.
Rationalising your collection
Rationalising your collection is about deciding what you want to keep and what you want to let
go. Does it fit into your area, have you run out of room? Do you have the space, time, and
money to look after items? Consider if you are the best museum for this object, does it fit with
your current collection or would there be a better home for it at another more appropriate
museum.
Helena showed the following short film on rationalising your collection – please click on the link
below:
https://vimeo.com/46428186
Disposal to other organisations
Considering disposing of items to other voluntary organisations i.e. local library, unaccredited
organisations, and amateur dramatic organisations. When doing so you will need to use code of
ethics for your guide.
http://www.museumsassociation.org/ethics/ethics-of-disposal
If an item is sold, the proceeds need to go back into benefiting the collection, not the running
costs of the museum. The sale of the item needs to be clearly documented, the process you went
through, consultation with the community or donor family (especially high value items).
Returning items that are on loan but are no longer appropriate to your collection
Get into a dialogue with the person who loaned the item to the museum. Explain that it is no
longer appropriate to the collection, or you don’t have the funds to take care of it or whatever
reason you have for no longer wanting it ‘tactfully’. When taking items on loan make sure that
timescale for the loan is agreed from the start and you provide formalised paperwork. Families
are often open to discussing changes within the museum and may be happy for you to sell it to
benefit the museum.
Helena does very good collection surveys. Helps to get grants, and put in procedures and
priorities. Book her through her email.
11.
HLF Fundraising Training
Future training dates:
27th July – Fundraising Events Management
Fundraising events are great fun for all involved, but they can also be a lot of hard work at a high
expense. If you want to organise a stress free event which raises shed loads of money this is the
course for you.




Explore the range, scope, objectives and nature of charity events and where events fit in to
the wider fundraising mix
Identify the key principles of planning an event
Understand the basic legal and fiscal rules governing events
Develop an event day checklist
Content
 Purpose, range and scope of fundraising events
 Selecting dates and venues
 Constructing a plan, timeline and budget for an event
 Marketing, promotion and sponsorship
 Communicate and manage within an event
 Budgets, break even and return on investment
 Working with volunteers and celebrities
 Project planning, checklists and event evaluation
Further details of the courses will be sent out on the CMG email list. In the meantime for any
enquiries about fundraising training please contact Jo Smith – details below.
Jo Smith - Events and Research Officer: JSmith@wheal-martyn.com
Ellie Collier - Programme Manager: ECollier@wheal-martyn.com
12.
AOB - None at this time
Next CMG Meeting:
8th September – Trenance Cottages, Newquay – please put the date in your diary!
Contact details:
Eleanor Moore, Sustainable Volunteer Officer,
SW Museum Development Partnership
eleanor.moore@bristol.gov.uk
Vicky Dawson, Accreditation Technical Advisor
Rowe Iain, Kresen Kernow
Helena Jaeschke, SW Conservation Officer
Bryony Robins (MDO Cornwall)
Jo Mattingly (interim MDO – Mid Cornwall):
Stephanie Meads (interim MDO – N & SE Cornwall)
Charlotte Dando (SWFed)
Ellie Collier – HLF Catalyst Fundraising Project
Jo Smith – HLF Catalyst Fundraising Project
vicky.dawson79@gmail.com
irowe1@cornwall.gov.uk
helenajaeschke@hotmail.com
bryony.robins@hotmail.com
joannamattingly@btinternet.com
stephanie.meads@btinternet.com
charlotte.dando@porthcurno.org.uk
ECollier@wheal-martyn.com
JSmith@wheal-martyn.com